Belle in the Box

My family is of European descent, but we’re Black. There are others like us here. See, there’s a parallel universe where Britney Spears and The Dixie Chicks are black artists performing R&B and Aaliyah, Beyonce, and Destiny’s Child, are all white and perform Country. Well, it’s not exactly parallel. It’s the Underworld, and I know it as Belle in the Box. I’m Belle, a Black soul born into a White body.

Initiation was hard. Creatures in my dreams broke my teeth with pliers, and each tooth that was broken broke in real life. I had had a bad experience with a ruthless endodontist who refused to give me enough novocaine during a root canal, so the fear of the dentist was put in me. So my teeth rotted out. Now mind you, I was granted the money from a life insurance policy so that I could get them fixed, but instead, I drank it away with the Devil. He was named Michael Phillip Horr at the time. Miles Per Hour. That was predestined.

Meeting Mike was the start of my Initiation into removing the Veil from my eyes. I had been practicing magick for a long time before, I just didn’t know it. Mike told me flat out that he was Satan. I don’t know exactly which Satan. It registered somewhere in the back of my mind.

I’m not much of a talker, more of a listener, and Mike sure could talk. He wrapped me in his web of words and set me on The Yellow Brick Road. The money finally ran out. He said a command which encouraged me to sleep with my first sexual partner, a woman named Zarina. I liked it but didn’t at the same time. I’m just not a lesbian. The smells were all off and it felt incomplete.

Zarina and I broke up pretty soon. I left her and began hanging out with my old childhood friends Marc and Angie. Marc and I would go to the bar once in a while and I would occasionally see Mike, up until he asked me if I wanted to go see Black Grape. I said yes and this registered in the back of my mind. See, I had said to the universe that I would sleep with Mike if he transformed into someone close to my own age who was a surfer, and that all Mike had to do was ask me if I wanted to go see Black Grape. So he did. I never saw M.P.H. again

All the while this was going on my teeth kept breaking and I kept drinking. I was in horrible pain and I packed my broken molars with cotton soaked in clove oil. While I was working as a nanny, I began seeing this guy around town. Real cute face, slender build, tawny skin, eyes aquamarine blue. I saw him at 7-11 one morning while he was pumping gas into his vintage Dodge Dart and said “Hello.” That was the last I’d see him for awhile.

Meanwhile, I built Hell for myself. See, I was molested by my father as a child, but had blocked out memories of it. All I knew was that I was terrified to let a man touch me in any way sexually, though I was attracted to them. So my fears ran wild and as I was listening to my headphones each night and smoking cigarettes, I invented doppelgangers, different versions of myself that could handle having sex while I was going through the losing of my technical virginity. I’m crying now. I can’t believe I did that to myself. Don’t ever create doppelgangers unless you’re building Stars. They will feast on your soul and take what’s rightfully yours.

Now back to The Teeth. I had a grand set of dragon teeth that put me into gnosis with the Underworld so I could see into the past and the future, pull people in, create events, and basically set it off. My main plan was to see a Black president in my lifetime, and I agreed, telepathically, to undergo the Rites of Initiation in order for this to happen. First I had to lose my virginity, my innocence because I had allowed a lot of horrid things enter this world unknowingly. Who better to do the job than Satan, Himself?

I did not remember that I had written him into my life when I was a 17 y/o high school drop out lying on the couch fantasizing about what may come.

His name was Damian Oakstar Matthews. D.O.M. Dirty Old Man. He was 27 and a massage therapist. I met him finally at the local coffee house, where he talked and I listened. He drove Marc and me back to my house and we sat down my hill, talking into the wee hours of the night. He gave me his card. I never called so he called me (I don’t know how he got my number) and asked me to dinner. We had a horrible first date. I didn’t like how controlling he was and did not kiss him at the end of the evening. It would be a while before I took his mouth with mine in my twin bed, my mother pacing the hallway.

Then the doppelgangers showed up, vying for his attention, which he gave them, breaking my heart a little more each time he did. He was a juggler you see, of balls and women. The worst one was this bitch, Lisa. He’d come over to my house and get all worked up, then he’d go and fuck her. She was pure lying evil. Every word that came out of her mouth was a lie, but he was spellbound. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t break up with him, though I had other options. It needed to be him. I had made a pact. He treated me like a dog at times, it was horrible. I’m not saying my attitude was all peaches n’ cream, either. I was really pissed about my circumstances and let him know it by my attitude.

I fell into Lust, which can seem an awful lot like Love, but it isn’t.

The deed was done on a November evening, after which he jumped up and went off to dance with Lisa instead of staying with me. I spent the night crying in the shower. My inner Presbyterian was dying. I was upset that I hadn’t saved myself for my husband. Oh, the wickedness that religion perpetrates on women.

A week later we had sex twice under the stars and after that a couple times in my house, and then he left me for Lisa. Drama ensued, and I ran off to Florida where I had sex with Archangel Michael and I was date raped by this guy named Richard. I wound up with a heinous kidney infection from that Dick. It was my penance for being horrible to a little boy in the fourth grade, but I won’t get into that.

I haven’t let a man touch me since. All my designated men turn out to be assholes, so it’s best to not let them physically inside of me, lest I become ill again. I have had plenty of cyber sex, though. I don’t do that anymore. It’s boring.

Anyway, I came back from Florida to find out that my whole family hated me suddenly. I became their slave. My teeth were in so much pain that I couldn’t work. I began an online life where I ran into some chaos magickians and then the God Ba’al Himself. They harnessed me and put me through the psychological wringer. I don’t lie, cheat, or steal anymore thanks to them. I have no addictions. I have no more debts to be paid.

Ba’al, known to me a Stephen, then sent me into the stratosphere, high as a kite, and I danced and performed mystery religion rites. I performed a LOT of public rituals. I got my teeth fixed.

I fell in love with a guy named Michael Lipford who is a samurai who I wanted to start a family with, but Fortune said “No.” Then I went into the Heart of Belle in the Box. I was 5150’d because I had been harming myself. Those molestation memories began bubbling up to the surface, you see, and I just wanted to die rather than live in a world where my father would do that to me.

The hospital was one big puppet show/graphic novel/television program. I could see the strings on each player, I knew my lines and said them. My father was there in one of his black incarnations. Pure insanity. Satan showed up as some death metal guy just to hurt me again. I think he really wanted to hurt my brother Kevin, but I didn’t participate in that game of Suicide. I had seen my time in the hospital in dreams while I was growing up. I knew everybody and everybody’s part. It was The Underworld made flesh. It was African.

My wish came true and Obama was elected, and I was on meds and getting regular sleep for the first time in about 5 years. I was diagnosed bipolar 1. I gained over 40 pounds because of this drug called Seroquel. They should really take that shit off the market.

Then I was tied into seeing my friend Marc to his death. We got our GED’s together at least.

Satan stalks me, I don’t know why. Maybe he feels we have some unfinished business. I wish he would move on. Ba’al is following me around too. I don’t mind him so much.